Begin Again
by 0utlier
Summary: I'd taped myself together with tape and glue, and now, for the first time since Sean had died I let myself fall apart. I hadn't consciously decided to do so, but nevertheless, tears began rolling down my face and when I spoke my voice trembled. "I did this, Seymour. This is my fault. This is all my fault." Balex. Post 3x18/19. Please give it a chance and review :)


**(A/N This story takes place post 3x18 and is a Balex one shot. I've read a lot of Balex fanfictions and felt like the romance was often rushed and wanted to create a feeling of a new beginning, a realization. This isn't supposed to be a big declaration of love but instead focuses on the relationship of friendship the two share now and how the current plot effects them both. I ship Balex big time and wanted to take the time to give them a proper start... For now it's just a beginning of feelings that neither of them can fully understand or even begin to admit. I also ship them as just a friendship-like he's her big brother. Anyone with me..? Anyways, I hope you like it! I really would appreciate any critique or any other kinds of comments you can give me. Thank you so much for reading. :) R&R!) **

Slowly but surely people cleared out, leaving Birkhoff and me alone to the torture of solitude. To say that the silence was awkward was an understatement, and I had a feeling that he wanted to get the hell out of dodge; anywhere away from me. I kept waiting for him to leave, too, but he didn't. Instead he watched me with those eyes of his, trying to decide what he should do. The silence continued for minutes or seconds—I didn't know. It felt like an eternity and I tried to think of something—anything—to say.

Birkhoff sat at his computer, probably the last one in the building, and even though that was most likely where he was the most comfortable, it did nothing for him now. The silent, nervous, absentminded brushing of his fingers against the keys brought him no consolation. Every couple seconds or so he would look up and his would scan the room, linger on me for a second and then go back to his computer's empty screen as if expected something to suddenly pop up—in his wildest dreams, probably the newest ShadowNet edition brought back from the dead. I wasn't certain if he was so nervous from the awkwardness of the situation or if he was expecting me to suddenly leap up and attack him. It took all I had to refrain from making a joke about his nerves, but after a moment's length of staring, I decided that him not ditching me the first chance he had was a miracle—and definitely not something to mock.

"Birkhoff…" I began and then trailed off, unsure of what to say. "I'm so, so sorry," I told him, my voice trembling a bit in a way that I hated myself for. I didn't want to be weak—not when I had been for the last week—and knew that if I started crying now I might never be able to stop. I couldn't understand why _now _of all times I'd lose it—after all, it was just Birkhoff. It was just "Nerd." Yet in the same way, that was exactly why this was so hard. It _was _Birkhoff—kind, gentle, funny, and yes, nerdy Birkhoff. It was the guy who'd compared me to a "Russian Doll," saying that I was just a bunch of "whys." He'd been the only one to actually ask me why I'd started using again instead of focusing on how to "fix me," and also the one who'd teased me about Sean and the only one I'd had to talk to when I'd felt like Nikita was pointing Division in the wrong direction. Yes, it was just Birkhoff—and it was so much more than that.

I looked at him, searching for some sign of forgiveness or redemption but I only found a pair of eyes full of pain. It was a look that said he'd been betrayed—and truthfully, he had been. He didn't answer me for a long time. Instead, he stared into my eyes, probably looking for the same things. Maybe looking to see if I was the same girl he'd once called a friend, to see if I was still _me_. Because I didn't know the answer to either of things—because whether I liked it or not, I knew I was _not_ the same person—I said nothing and waited for him to respond. Something shifted in his eyes, sympathy, maybe, but for the most part they still remained hard and distant, unlike his normal eyes that were light and kind, occasionally becoming full of fire, a different kind of light in times of crisis, which was admittedly most, if not all, of the time.

Finally, he cleared his throat and gave me his full attention, his skin paling. "Did you tell Chris to kill me?" He asked me, looking betrayed in a way that made my heart ache. Once again I was reminded of the damage I'd caused, the people I'd hurt. I'd been so focused on the physical damage that I'd caused—how I'd gotten so many people killed; including Sean, and how I'd shot Ryan—that I hadn't thought about all of the collateral damage along the way. I hadn't thought about the people who my betrayal had hurt. And suddenly, I realized just how afraid I was of losing him. Not just his friendship, but also his respect. His kindness—even if he wasn't obvious about it—and our casual banter was a part of my world, and now, coming face to face with losing that I wasn't sure if I could bear losing anything else, if I could bear losing that. Him.

I took a hesitant step toward him, wincing when he flinched. I wanted to reach out and touch him in some way but I didn't, knowing that it wouldn't help. "No," I answered, voice almost desperate—which technically, I was—letting my face express all of the things I was feeling. Since Sean had died I'd felt this irrevocable sense of pain—like a knife—yet for the first time I felt something other than pain: fear. I was so, so afraid that I couldn't get better—and also afraid that even if I did, I'd be alone. After what had happened, being alone seemed like the worst thing in the world. "I didn't tell anyone to kill you," I continued honestly, hoping that he would believe me. "I even sent Owen to _protect_ you."

"Well, I guess it's the thought that counts, right?" He asked me, a twinge of anger in his voice now that made me flinch. His eyes had softened a bit, but now they were hard again—so unlike the usual Birkhoff.

Now that I was convinced that if I took a step he wouldn't reach for his gun—one that he'd only recently started carrying-I moved forward so that I stood over him. I made no moves to touch him and instead let my arms hang to my sides, palms open and unthreatening. Birkhoff watched me warily but also made no sudden movements—which I was grateful for. I didn't want to be touched, or at least I didn't think I did. He was still watching me with those cold eyes and I felt my insides quiver—like a glass just waiting to break. And honestly, I was just as wary as he was—I was like a ticking bomb.

And then he looked away.

That was when all of it became too much for me to handle because it occurred to me that I actually might lose him forever. "Look at me," I started, my voice trembling and then trailed off, not sure what to say when he did, not sure if I wanted his eyes on me. Slowly but surely he turned to look and it seemed perfectly natural to reach out and touch his arm—but I didn't. "Amanda…" I tried to put my words together into sentences that made sense, but in reality I had no idea where to start. "Amanda only amplified what was already there. My pain.. my anger, my guilt… She turned it all into a weapon. She…she turned _me _into a weapon." My eyes returned to the ground before finally meeting his after a few seconds, surprised when they held a spark of something other than anger and blame. Kindness, maybe? Sympathy? Mercy? I didn't know. All I knew was that I had his attention—if I could ever hope to make him understand, the time was now. I resisted the urge to cry, chewing on the sides of my cheeks. I tried to get back on track.

"I'm not asking you to forgive me," I told him truthfully, continuing. "Because _I _will never forgive me. I screwed up and…" I swallowed, his name coming out more like a wail than the simple word it was. "Sean _died_ because of it—and he's not the only one. And what's worse is that Amanda didn't make me do any of those things. She couldn't force me to do anything that somewhere deep down I didn't want to do. And I never, _ever _would hurt you, Birkhoff. I never wanted to hurt you." A tear escaped down my cheek and I quickly wiped away, hoping he hadn't seen it fall. It didn't matter anyway, because my eyes were full of tears.

Once again his eyes softened and stayed that way this time, causing some of the tightness in my chest to go away. The pain was still there—I had a feeling that the pain would _always _be there—but the desperation slowly faded away and inhaled, amazed when I found that for the first time in days I could actually _breathe. _Slowly but surely the fear faded from my body and I realized just how afraid I'd been that I'd lose him. It occurred to me that I'd taken him horribly for granted—he was _Birkhoff_, after all. "Why are you telling me all of this?" He asked me, his face more relaxed now—his eyes gentle.

"Because you said that we don't leave our friends to be Amanda's victims. And I know it's not the same thing, I know it's not, but while I'm not asking you to forgive me, I _need _you to," I told him, my voice pleading. I refused to shed anymore tears and forced myself to stand up straight, looking him in the eye. "If you don't want me here then I'll leave. I would've already, except that the last thing…_he_…made me promise was that I'd try to get better." I waited for Birkhoff's face to show mockery or something else, but it only showed kindness. I exhaled with a gust of air, finding it hard to breathe again. "And I don't know how to do that without you."

A confused look crossed his face, and my heart broke when he asked in an astonishingly surprised voice, "Why me? Why does my opinion matter so much to you?" He asked me, eyes gentle. The way he said it… it was like he found it hard to believe that anyone would care or find anything he had to offer, like _he _didn't think anything he could offer was important. He didn't see himself clearly—not at all, I realized, amazed that _Birkhoff_, of all people doubted his worth. "Why aren't you telling this to Michael or Ryan? Nikita…Sonya…I don't know. Someone important. Why me?"

"Because… I don't know. Because you're here. Because you're _you._" I wasn't sure what I could say to make him understand how important he was—all I knew was that I _wanted _to. It was the first thing that I'd wanted to do since Sean had died other than try and fix the mess I'd already made. It was stupid and silly—there were more important things to think about—but something told me that if I could show him, show him just how amazing he was… it would be worth it.

"A computer nerd?" Birkhoff asked, voice slightly bitter—but not at me.

"No. Well, yes. But you're…you're more than that." I was rambling now and he knew it; scrambling to put my thoughts into words. "You're sweet and kind and…irreplaceable," I continued, hoping that he would believe me and not think that it was just the kind of thing you told someone, which technically, it was. "You're like _him_," I admitted, my voice breaking. "And after everything…I can't stand the idea of someone like him hating me."

The more I thought about it, the more I realized just how much they were alike. Sean had been more confident with himself, sure, more warrior like. He had always been ready for battle and had never hesitated with his gun, prepared to become ruthless if he had to. And even though Birkhoff was none of those things, he _was _kind like Sean had been. Kind and understanding and _strong_, even if it was in an entirely different way. Sean had always been beside me in the field, but Birkhoff was the voice in my ear, my lifeline...he had always been with me in an entirely different way.

And he was also one of the very few people I had left.

Birkhoff's face became kinder then, a look I'd never seen on him. There was still doubt and vulnerability in his eyes, something that I also wasn't used to seeing. He was usually so guarded and well, sarcastic that his face rarely showed how he felt—only his eyes. In that moment it didn't matter if he didn't understand, if I was making any sense… all that mattered was that he was here. "I never hated you, Alex. I don't know. I guess I just…Blamed you. For everything that's happened, when the truth is was that it would have happened anyway, sooner or later. We are on thin ice with them and after it broke…I needed to blame someone so I blamed you." He looked down at the floor ashamed and then back up to meet my eyes, once again taking me off guard. "I'm sorry."

I don't know what made me do it, what finally made me break, especially with him. I'd taped myself together with tape and glue, and now, for the first time since _he_ had died I let myself fall apart. I hadn't consciously decided to do so, but nevertheless, tears began rolling down my face and when I spoke my voice trembled. "I…I did this, _Seymour_. This is my fault. This is all my fault…" My throat was thick with emotion and the sound that escaped me then was torn between a laugh and a cry. It was hideously embarrassing to be seen like this, with him of all people, but in the same way I felt like I didn't have to hide from him. The thought of disappointing Michael or even _Nikita _was unbearable, and while I trusted Nikita more than anyone else in the world, I felt like she'd done so much for me, all to _save _me, and I couldn't burden her the same way I could someone like Birkhoff, someone who looked at me with eyes that lacked any form of judgment.

I never had called him by his first name before, preferring to refer to him as simply "Birkhoff" or even "computer geek." It occurred to me that maybe that was one of the reasons he was so insecure about his worth—if maybe he couldn't see himself as anyone more than a computer geek because no one else did either, at least not to his face. His name rolled effortlessly off my tongue, like I'd been saying it all along.

He didn't disagree with me, maybe because he thought that it _was _my fault, maybe because he knew that there was nothing he could say to make me feel any better. It didn't matter because then he reached out to me—something that I didn't expect. Nevertheless, I let him take me into his arms, his hand resting on the back of my head. There was nothing romantic in the way he held me, yet it stirred a series of emotions within me, feelings that had been held off from me until I could handle them. I wasn't entirely sure if I couldn't handle it, but as I cried in Seymour's arms, feeling lost and pathetic, I realized that I wanted to. I wanted to live. It was why I had survived all of this time, just like Nikita had said. There was a part of me, despite and because of all that I had been through, that yearned to embrace life and all that it could offer. I couldn't picture the future Nikita always talked about, the future full of humdrum happiness and white picket fences, but I knew that I wanted to find out if it was possible or if it was just some impossible dream. I wanted to help people, and even though I knew I couldn't save everyone now, possibly not even myself, I knew that I _could _make a difference. Sean's words came back to me then, reminding me that first I had to help myself.

Hope burst inside of me and even if it was irrational, I fought to hold onto it with everything I had. My fingertips gripped his shirt, trying to grab on to something, anything. My head was burrowed in his chest, tears straining his casual blue t shirt that was half way covered by a checkered blazer that surprised me a lot more than it should have—it _was_ Seymour Birkhoff after all. Seymour leaned down to slowly kiss my forehead-which again held no romantic intent but sent a warmth through me that I couldn't understand—before looking me in the eyes to say softly, almost like a whisper, "I'm sorry I've been so hard on you."

It made no sense—there was no rhyme or reason to what was happening now. These feelings made absolutely no sense. I refused to feel them. I shoved them back down into the pit of my stomach where they'd stay. That feeling of warmth at his touch would not resurface—I would make sure of it. Yet as he released me, his hands lightly touched my waist and there was a light tingle of something, and whatever it was, it scared me. It wasn't an overwhelming feeling of passion or anything like that, but it felt… nice. Fresh. In my mind's eye I saw a butterfly, fresh from the cocoon struggling to take flight. It was the kind of feelings that promised beginnings and unpredictability…

And also the kind of feelings that were completely, beyond a shadow of a doubt ridiculous and not warranted.

"Let's just move on, okay?" I asked him as I wiped away any remaining tears and forced a smile, staring into a pair of eyes that were kind and forgiving, and also had a twinkle of something I didn't recognize. However, I meant my words and even though I couldn't forget the things I'd felt, I had a desire to, a desire for simplicity, especially because I knew that if I didn't, my heart better prepare itself to be a pretty big mess.

**(Thank you for reading! R&R!)**


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